Apocalypticism

While apocalypticism today gives associations to cataclysmic doomsday scenarios, the Greek term apokálypsis means “revelation” and refers to a genre of visionary religious texts that were widespread in late-antiquity.

Asceticism and Ritual Self-Practices

Asceticism is a concept that originated in ancient Greek culture. The term askêsis originally referred to training and exercises of a more physical and gymnastic nature, but also came to denote the strictly regulated spiritual way of life that distinguished philosophical and religious sects.

Body and Gender

Being a cultural being also means being a "gendered" being in the sense that ideas about body and gender affect both one's own living space and the ways in which society is organized. Therefore, questions related to sex, body, sexuality and gender have long been central in ethnology.

Critical Culture Heritage Studies and Museology

Critical Heritage Studies is an interdisciplinary field of research that takes a pronounced critical perspective on both the concept and the phenomenon of cultural heritage.

Critical Medical Humanities

Cultural Economy

Ethnologists study how economic activities are culturally shaped.

Cultural History

Ethnology has a wide interest in cultural history. The past can be approached either in its own right, for the study of historical processes and phenomena, or used as a resource in studies focused also on the present.

Cultural utterances, Rituals and Play

"Form" = how something is said or done. "Expressive" = expressive, something that attracts attention.

Culture and Nature

How people and culture influence and are influenced by what we perceive as nature is a common theme in ethnological research.

Diversity and Transnational Mobility

Everyday Life and the Festive

Everyday life is one of ethnology's most central concepts, and it has different meanings. On the one hand, it marks an ambition to explore what is taken for granted and routine in people's lives, in different contexts and times.

Feminist Cultural Studies

Within this scientific approach, culture is studied as aesthetic, bodily and material practices from a feminist perspective.

Feminist Literary Studies

Feminist literary researchers aim to unsettle the meaning of a text, displacing and conditionalising it.

Feminist perspectives on global politics

Global politics focuses on the ways international issues relate to gender, sexuality and other social hierarchies.

Feminist Philosophy

Gender and Biology

Feminist science studies have a long history of analyzing how sex/gender is described in biological research and how biological arguments are used to justify oppression.

Gender and Religion

The research area gender and religion explores how gender creates and is created by religious notions and practices. The dynamics between lived, popular religion and religious institutions are central for the gender perspective in ethnographic as well as historical studies.

Institutional Ethnology

Islamic Studies

Islamic Studies at Stockholm University is a multifaceted discipline in the history of religions. It includes research concerning how Islam has been interpreted and practiced in different historical periods as well as different cultural settings globally, from the beginning of Islam to the present.

Lived Religion

Religion as a phenomenon in constant change is a corner stone in the history of religions. In this field of research, lived religion addresses religion as a part of peoples’ everyday life.

Magi, mystik och esoterism

As a result of a dominant concept of religion modeled on Protestantism, magic, mysticism, and esotericism have often been seen as marginal and problematic forms of religion in the west.

Maritime History

The sea is a means of transportation as well as a stage for violent battles. It separates nations and peoples - and it can bring them together. It is a site for trade as well as for plunder, it gives us vital natural resources while storms can make it deadly for some. This field studies humans' historical relationship to seas, oceans and waterways.

Masculinity Studies

Researchers within this subfield have an interest in men and masculinities, which are studied from several feminist, intersectional, and critical perspectives.

Materiality and Visual Culture

Two areas of research that recently have received attention in ethnology are those that have to do with studies of the material (materiality studies) and visual culture (visual culture or visual studies).

Old Norse Religion

The research profile of Old Norse religion includes an interdisciplinary approach, where several different source categories are studied.

Queer Studies

Queer studies gather researchers from different disciplines who use queer theoretical perspectives to analyze for instance literature, global relations and uses of history.

Religion, Politics and Violence

Religion, politics and violence is a broad field of research that includes a multitude of religious traditions in both history and the present.

Religion in Change

Religions are historical objects, shaped by humans in specific historical circumstances. Religions are invented, adapted to new circumstances, and eventually wither away.

Religions of Antiquity

Religions of antiquity usually refer to the religions that flourished in the Mediterranean from early historical (archaic) times until the beginning of the Middle Ages.

The Use of History and Tourism

The use of history is a concept that captures how history, i.e. the image of what has been, is used for purposes that may be ideological, economic, identity politics or academic.